Chương 112: 44.Confinement 44-2

After the meeting, the bunker settled into a nighttime rhythm that defied easy description. The firestorm continued outside, walls shuddering at intervals like something enormous was using the whole rainforest to slap our iron box. Inside: basic lighting, showers, two small washrooms, eight folding beds narrow enough to test interpersonal boundaries, and an air recycler with an irritating hum. The Federation was remarkable. Topside they threw you into a death jungle.

Below they built something between a military outpost and budget hotel. Civilization and malice as a package deal, seventy-two hour door lock included. Very thoughtful. Harvey integrated our remaining alarm wire with D's sensors—even with the door sealed, he ran two interior alert layers: one for equipment anomalies, one for people getting grabby with others' gear at night. Reasonable. The greater threat now wasn't monsters. It was cohabitating humans. D and the tall boy took first equipment watch.

The short-haired girl held the inner door observation window. Akari sat by the vent with her rifle, officially on rest but showing zero intention of sleeping. Those dead-fish eyes were strange—usually they looked like she'd given up on the world, but when she actually watched something, you realized she wasn't absent at all. Just too indifferent to advertise how closely she was reading everything. I was installed by Maki on the wall-side bed—closest to medical kit, water, and her. She didn't say the last part.

I could see it. Infuriating. Once the anesthetic wore to half-strength, you entered a particularly unpleasant state: not quite unconscious, not quite lucid, your whole body quietly filing grievances. Any breath too deep and the left side reminded you that today's metal spike wasn't a dream. I lay there unable to roll over, staring at the ceiling. Jess sat nearby unpacking a ration bar, muttering: "Eight people locked together for seventy-two hours.

I'm starting to understand why some groups just open with violence." D, against the opposite wall, snorted.

"Go ahead. Fight. We'll all get hotter together."

"Coming from your build, that has zero credibility," Jess said.

"You fight like you're rearranging furniture."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Harvey was adjusting the filtration module, not looking up.

"You're both loud."

"You're cold," Jess replied.

"And useful," I added. Harvey finally looked at me.

"You should minimize participation in pointless conversation."

"Oh, so now you've joined Maki's coalition?"

"Because she's right." Great. Team 144 internal coup complete. The injured party loses all votes. I was about to close my eyes and play dead when Akari spoke from across the room.

"Kushima," she said.

"That's the fifth time you've checked her dressing." One second of quiet. I turned to look at Maki. She was sitting beside the medical kit, cleaning instruments. Her fingers paused for a moment, then continued without acknowledgment.

"The wound is lateral abdominal," she said, tone level.

"Seepage, tearing, and heat elevation require monitoring." Akari nodded.

"Mm. Diligent." She left it there, like she'd only been making an observational note. For reasons I didn't want to examine, warmth crept up the back of my neck. Jess looked at me, then at Maki, then visibly swallowed whatever she'd been about to say, replacing it with a single, loaded "ohhhh." Sometimes she knew which fires not to light immediately. I had to admit: progress. I rolled my eyes.

"What's that 'oh' for."

"Nothing," she said, biting into her ration bar, smiling like she'd stolen something.

"Just noticing Frost 01's very popular today." This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"You're bored."

"Who in this bunker isn't?" Fair point. Outside the firestorm howled. Inside, all anyone could do was rotate shifts, wait for temperature to drop, wait for the door, wait for time to grind forward. That kind of stillness made people watch each other more carefully than in daylight—because there was nowhere to escape and no excuse to be busy. What bothered me most was that the aftermath of Maki's procedure lingered worse than the wound itself. Not just because she'd kept me alive—though that counted.

It was that I couldn't keep treating her like walking paperwork anymore. The way she'd moved during surgery was too steady. Too precise to dismiss as merely useful. Genuinely troublesome. Later into the night, the main lights dimmed. People on rest found places to sit, lean, half-sleep. The bunker had showers—in the Evaporation Forest, borderline miraculous. Nobody treated it as luxury, though.

Everyone understood it as necessity: wash off the ash, sweat, salt, and blood the firestorm had deposited, because spending all night sealed in this tin box otherwise was self-marinating. Maki had been explicit: tonight I was getting a wipe-down only. No contact with the wound. No hot water. No independent attempts at anything. I agreed to all of it. Then, when she went to cross-check the shared emergency pool records with Akari, I slowly got out of bed. The reasoning was straightforward.

I was sticky in the way that only happens when you've been pulled from mud and glazed with coagulant. Armor and inner layers cut open in sections, skin layered with sweat, ash, antiseptic, and blood. Lying back down in that state—I'd rather take another Purgation Gale slap. So I made the very reasonable judgment that I could handle this myself. ——That sentence probably ranked in my personal top ten stupidest decisions.

The washroom was small—metal walls, a narrow bench, non-slip flooring, and a low-flow shower pipe that hummed faintly. The water wasn't hot, just warm, carrying that metallic taste specific to recycled systems. Still more dignified than the salt pits outside. I slowly peeled off what remained of my shredded inner layer. Even being careful, my left side seized immediately. I froze, waited for the spike to pass, then draped a clean towel over my shoulder and prepared to rinse the parts that weren't punctured.

Everything was fine up to that point. Until I decided to clean my back and left waist area myself. I reached back with my right hand, body instinctively twisting to avoid the wound. The moment I turned, the freshly sutured line felt like someone had grabbed it from inside and yanked hard. I didn't even get fuck out. Nothing came out at all. My whole body locked. Breath stuck in my throat, vision darkening at the edges, knees nearly giving out.

One hand caught the wall; the other pressed instinctively to my side, fingertips finding the dressing—cold and damp, whether from water, sweat, or my dissolving dignity. Perfect. Hoshino Shimo. Fourteen years old. Team leader. Survived two weeks in the Evaporation Forest. Just chaired a joint operations meeting. Now preparing to fold herself in half in a washroom out of pure stubbornness. Very impressive. A quiet sound outside the door.

"Hoshino?" Maki. My first instinct was to bluff. But past a certain threshold, even pride has to wait in line. All I managed was to hold that ridiculous position—forehead against the cold metal wall—and force out, muffled:"…Don't come in." Half a beat of silence outside.

"You sound like you're about to pass out just saying that," Maki said.

"Move back. I'm coming in."

"I can handle this myself—" The door opened. I wanted to yell at her for disrespecting her team leader, but my current state left me with zero authority to deploy. She walked in and saw it immediately—one hand braced on the wall, one pressed to my side, the whole picture of someone who'd twisted herself into trouble. She didn't make any exaggerated expression. I was grateful for that. If she'd looked at me with an I knew this would happen face, I probably would have been angry enough to actually tear something.

She just crossed quickly and steadied my uninjured arm.

"Stand up straight," she said.

"I am standing straight."

"You look like a mop that's given up."

"…That comparison is deeply offensive."

"And accurate." I didn't have the energy to argue anymore. She turned the water down first, confirmed my dressing hadn't taken a direct hit, then folded a clean towel against my left side as a barrier. Every movement was purely clinical—nothing wasted. Which was exactly what made it worse. Too close. Not in any inappropriate way—the kind of close where you hear each other breathe. She smelled faintly of antiseptic with something clean underneath, like plain soap, completely out of place in this bunker.

I was barely holding my own weight; most of it was on her. That fact alone made me want to disappear.

"If you can't lift your arm, don't be stubborn," she said.

"I wasn't being stubborn. I was trying not to act like an invalid."

"You are an invalid right now."

"Maki, could you occasionally leave me some dignity." She looked up at me, eyes flat as always.

"Right now I'm preserving your wound, not your dignity." … Fine. I lost that one. After that, she worked quickly and cleanly. Nothing touched that shouldn't be touched. No deliberate slowness to let awkwardness ferment. Just methodically helping me rinse my shoulders, back, arms, neck, and the uninjured half, using the towel to carefully work around the left side, lifting away the sticky layer of sweat and ash.

But it was exactly that—too straightforward, too undeflectable, too impossible to escape—that made it devastating. Because I couldn't even get angry and think is she doing this on purpose? She was just genuinely helping me. And I realized, with considerable embarrassment, that something in me had actually shifted in that moment. Not the cheap love at first sight variety. Something more complicated. Something like: So this is what it feels like to let someone have your back—to let someone see you at your worst.

Terrible. Worse than the wound.

"Done," Maki said quietly.

"Sit down." She guided me onto the metal bench and draped a dry towel over my shoulders. I avoided looking at her the whole time—mostly because I didn't trust my face not to give me away. She probably noticed but didn't call me on it. Just kept her tone level.

"We'll change the dressing when we get back. Can you walk?" I cleared my throat and scraped together what remained of my team-leader dignity.

"Yes." First step out, my side flared enough that I nearly reached for the wall again. Maki caught me without a word and guided my arm over her shoulder. I wanted to say I'm fine. This time, I actually learned something. Some situations, being stubborn just makes you look more pathetic.